Smart Reply in Inbox by Gmail will help you compose responses with ease

Replying to email can be a cumbersome task, and Google wants to once again make it easier with Smart Reply. The new feature will be making its way to Inbox by Gmail, and it aims to reduce the amount of time spent composing replies. Smart Reply will suggest various responses to your emails, reducing the amount of time you need to spend typing the words.

Smart Reply suggests up to three responses based on the emails you get. For those emails that only need a quick response, it can take care of the thinking and save precious time spent typing. And for those emails that require a bit more thought, it gives you a jump start so you can respond right away.

Behind the scenes, Inbox uses machine learning to recognize emails that typically need a response, and then works to generate the natural language response for you. Smart Reply will be rolling out this week through Google Play, so be on the lookout for an update to hit your phone.

Reader comments

Smart Reply in Inbox by Gmail will help you compose responses with ease

And then a smart reply composed by your email is sent to someone else, whose smart reply composes a response, which is sent back to you, and so on... Before you know it, computers are doing all the replying, so you can get back to the important bits, like collecting electronic gems and coins for your make believe army.

I actually hate opening the Gmail app anymore. I like how Inbox automatically categorizes my emails and has the bundles visible based on when messages came in vs. having to switch to the different tabs in Gmail. The snooze feature is also great because it hides an email that you've decided you need to deal with at a later time (say in 3 weeks) or at a certain place (like when you receive a personal email while at work and can't address it right away, but you want to be sure to get back to it when you arrive at home) by popping up a new notification as if the message just arrived when or where you need it.

Of course, using the Inbox app/website doesn't disable your Gmail app/website and visa versa and each can label/bundle your messages the same, so you can easily move between the two. I've just gotten to where I like the simplicity of Inbox's interface.

Oh goody, finally we get a significant update to Inbox. Don't get me wrong, I really like Inbox but it's starting to feel a bit stagnant already cos there hasn't really been any noteworthy updates since it left beta.